Exploring The Wilderness Of Inner Silence

Main menu

Post navigation

About Bloggin With Rich

I was born in London in 1955 and have lived a very topsy turvey life. I left school at 15 with no qualifications, and had I not left voluntarily, I would have been asked to leave. I always felt that I didn't fit in anywhere, and as a result, by the time I reached the age of 17 I'd had 24 jobs.
I joined the army in 1976 hoping that it would give me a purpose in life but instead I became even more disillusioned and turned to alcohol. I hated the army because I found it to be such a hypocritical organisation and as soon as I was eligible to do so, I bought myself out.
Whilst in the military however, I did enjoy my experiences in Germany and in 1980 went back there to work, staying for six years. My heavy drinking continued during my time in Germany and by the time I returned to the UK in 1986 I was heading down into a deep depression. I managed to haul myself out of it in the mid-to-late 1990's but my life hit an all time low in 2000.
In early 2001 I found my spiritual pathway and started to turn my life around. I now live in Gloucestershire in the UK and I'm a successful medium and healer. I'm also the author of ten spiritual publications and have produced five meditation and three chanting CDs. I'm a workshop facilitator in various spiritual topics and I also give profound interpretations of dreams.
There are plans in 2014 for another book, provisionally entitled "An Idiots Guide To Spiritual Law" and a series of audio books in CD form.
Connect with me on facebook https://www.facebook.com/authorrichardfholmes

I came across this pearl of wisdom from Osho and thought I would share it with you. If you are not familiar with Osho, he is often referred to as a, “brilliant but flawed guru”. He was certainly unorthodox as far as gurus go, so I think we all have to come to our own conclusion. From a personal perspective, I have found certain areas of his teachings incredibly profound and quite beautiful, and they have helped me to gain a better understanding of who I am. The following snippet is from the book, “The Empty Boat – encounters with nothingness”, and I think it is a very apt way to explain a very simple, but difficult to accept, truth. Hope you like it.

Nobody else can destroy you except you; nobody else can save you except you. You are the Judas and you are the Jesus.

Like this:

Well, lovely people, the plot thickens. You may remember that in my last blog post I said that since sharing in my book, Eyesight To The Blind, that my out-of-body experiences were virtually a thing of the past, that I then embarked on a flurry of astral adventures, only for them to dry up again. Well, I eventually had another one that is actually worth writing about, because it seems to be a new experience. I say, “seems”, because I don’t remember having had this experience before.

During the early hours of Christmas morning I felt the all-too-familiar feeling of being out-of-body as another soul carried me off on a journey to who knows where. This was actually a very short event, but like some of my other very short out-of-body experiences, it held some significance. I decided to keep my eyes closed as I travelled, and after a brief journey felt myself come to a halt. Now here’s the significance. I had a sense of oneness, but not with what I like to call, “the inner wilderness of silence”; the “peace that passes all understanding”, which is our true nature, our very essence. No, it was a sense of oneness with the astral world. I was completely without form and one with the astral energy in which I was enfolded; incidentally, it was pale blue in colour but a pale blue that was not of this earth. It is extremely difficult to describe the experience accurately, but I’m doing my best. In that Nano-moment, nothing existed except that pale blueness, of which I was a part. The energy had quite a hard power to it that was in no way subtle.

In no time at all, that experience was over but I was still out-of-body. I then noticed that I had a lovely female spirit for a companion. We were side-on to each other and she had her arm around me; she then kissed me on the cheek, which was a lovely feeling. Then as quick as a flash I was back in my body and laying in my bed. The whole experience seemed to take nothing more than a matter of seconds. It was around 04:20 in the morning.

It just goes to show that you can never predict these out-of-body shenanigans…

Yes, it most certainly is! Not only is Zenperman able to leap tall buildings at a single bound, but he also wears his underpants outside his trousers. I had a situation recently that had me scurrying for the nearest telephone box in order to change into my secret identity; the aforementioned super-hero, Zenperman. I’m sharing it here because I know it’s a situation that so many of you will be able to relate to. I was left angry, violated, indignant, frustrated; in fact, so miffed was I that my dainty little fingers were on the verge of writing a “stiff letter” to The Times and signing it, “Mr Angry, Tetbury”. But thankfully, Zenperman came to the rescue and I’m about to tell you how…

It all started when my energy provider, Bristol Energy (BE), hiked their prices for the second time in 12 months. Now, before I go any further, I should mention for the benefit of overseas readers, that here in the UK we have been able to switch between energy providers for some years now. So, if we think that we are getting a rough deal, we simply switch to another company (subject to the terms and conditions that we signed up for). You also may be wondering, given the usual subject matter of my posts, why I’m sharing this? The thing is, we are all human (sort of), especially when we are experiencing the physical existence, and sometimes our human weaknesses take over and cause us all sorts of problems. So, I thought it might be a good idea to share a bit of my own humanness with you, whilst introducing you to Zenperman at the same time. The full boring details are as follows…

I get a letter from BE informing me of the price hike. “What”? I say to myself, in the most indignant manner I can muster. The upshot is, that over the next few days, I work out my annual usage and compare prices with other energy providers. Realising that I can get a better deal with a particular company, I instigate the switching process, which normally takes a few weeks to go through.

I’m aware that you might fall asleep before I get to the point, but it’s important that you have all the fine details so that you fully understand what was going on. So, hang in there; your country needs you!

In due course, I get an email from my new provider asking me to supply meter readings (which I do), I also get an email from BE asking me to keep my Direct Debit open so they can transfer any credit into my bank account once my final bill is produced. Then I get another email from BE asking me to provide meter readings. By this time my switch date (22 October 2018) has passed, so even though I’m no longer a customer of BE, I supply two more readings, because you can never have too many meter readings…

I then receive another email from BE informing me that my latest statement is ready to view online. I check, and to my delight, I notice that my account is in credit by just over £40.00. I also notice that my electricity reading has not been entered as a final reading, but at this stage no rats could be smelled! On 1 November I check my bank account online, and to my utter disgust, not only have BE not issued my refund, but they have taken another Direct Debit payment from my account. In a very rational and reasonable way I proceeded to contact BE customer services, and in synonymy with my Britishness, I kept the most impeccable “stiff upper lip” as I enquired what the *@#? was going on. I was informed by a customer service rep that they had not yet received my final electricity reading from my new supplier. I pointed out that this wasn’t true, as not only had they sent it, but BE had entered it onto my account to produce my latest statement. The young girl I was talking to informed me that the reading was from an “unverified source” so it could not yet be considered as a final reading. I was also informed that it can take up to six weeks for BE to produce a final bill and then any refund can take up to 10 working days to be processed. With regard to the extra payment being taken, even though I was no longer their customer, she informed that, “the payment must have already been requested prior to my switch date, and because the Direct Debit was still open, the payment was duly processed. I was not happy; and I’m not making reference to one of the seven dwarfs!

Back in the days when it was just the good old (or bad old) Electricity Board and Gas Board, you had only one supplier of each utility. But what you also had was local branches, so if you had a beef, you could go somewhere local in person, and sort it out. These days you have the advantage of multiple choice, but if something goes wrong, you have to do battle with people who hide behind the safety of a computer screen and who are also miles away. Enter Zenperman…

Thanks to how I’ve evolved over the years; and been “found” by Zen, I now understand that getting angry achieves nothing. I also understand the truth in statements such as, “energy flows where attention goes”, and “what you resist will persist”. But my ego had all its lights flashing and all its bells and whistles going flat-out. It was the sheer indignation of being bullied by a corporation who were completely, totally and utterly in the wrong and not being able to do anything about it. Thanks to Zenperman I was able to tell myself that the best course of action would be no action, that “this too will pass”. However…

I found BE’s twitter account and made my feelings felt. I messaged them demanding, yes demanding, that they sort it out! I also went onto Trustpilot and wrote a scathing one-star review, which I shared on my twitter feed. Zenperman had his work cut out because Mr Angry was a stubborn old geezer and wasn’t going to go into transcendental meditation without a fight! But Zenperman persisted…

I received a reply from BE on twitter, simply reiterating what their customer service rep had told me. So I sent another message, “how dare you”? “I want my money”; “I’m British”!!!!!! The annoying thing also, was that BE were telling me that my reading was from an unverified source, but it was the same source from which they’d received ALL of my meter readings (i.e. me) ever since I first switched to them. Now all of a sudden the source is unverified. They also said that the reads sent to them by my new supplier, which they entered onto my energy account, were entered by me at 18:01 in the evening on 18/10/18; which was an absolute load of rubbish. I felt truly violated and further frustrated because I wanted to complain to the energy regulator, but the regulator can only get involved in disputes if they have been ongoing for at least eight weeks. So, I decided to listen to Zenperman and just let things happen naturally.

Every now and then I would wake up in the morning and my ego would start playing the story out in my head. “Don’t you realise what they have done to you? Thanks to them taking an extra payment from you, your account is now in credit by over £70.00. That’s YOUR money and they are taking liberties with you; SIX WEEKS to issue a final bill”! Thankfully, Zenperman would step in and calm things down.

But over seven weeks passed and still there was no sign of my final bill and refund. I decided enough was enough. I would contact BE one last time via social media requesting my bill. If it was not forthcoming I would be getting in touch with the regulator. To my surprise, I received a reply the next day apologising for the delay and within 24 hours my final bill was issued. It still wasn’t perfect, and I’m not going to offer any more fine detail as I think you may have had enough, but it had always been my intention to write a follow-up, scathing one-star review on Trustpilot and also to contact the regulator anyway, as I felt that BE surely had service standards and targets that would have fallen short in this case, entitling me to compensation. But doing that would only have prolonged the agony of an already tired situation. The refund hit my bank account on Christmas Eve, and I decided that I was just going to let the whole thing go and move on.

Yes, BE were in the wrong. Yes, utility companies have been getting away with bullying their customers for far too long. But there is always a bigger picture; a grander scheme. I am not a refugee in a flimsy, overcrowded boat in the middle of the sea that is in danger of capsizing. I’m just a geezer who experienced a bit of inconvenience, and thanks to Zenperman I’m able to see the situation as such.

Thanks again Zenperman; it’s because of you that the city can sleep safely tonight!

Life’s irony never fails to amaze me and make me chuckle. Having previously blogged about my too-numerous-to-accurately-count astral adventures; and also having mentioned them in my books on many occasions, I stated in my latest offering, Eyesight To The Blind, that such occurrences were now extremely rare and apparently confined to the past. But within what seemed like only weeks of the book being published they started up again.

I had a spate of out-of-body experiences over a period of a few months; a couple of which were very detailed indeed. I didn’t blog about them because unless something really spectacular happens, I no longer deem the phenomenon worthy of keyboard tapping. However, I was nonetheless lulled into thinking that I was about to embark on a new life adventure that would induce many happy hours of the aforementioned keyboard tapping. Then it happened… Nothing! Yes, since October 9 I have been left drumming my fingers impatiently, waiting for the next instalment; you really couldn’t make it up.

But I didn’t call this post “Living The Dream” for nothing. I of course, can’t prove what I am about to share with you, but it is a theory of mine nonetheless; and a theory based on my actual experience. Some of the “happenings” in my out-of-body adventures were so absolutely crazy, that they reminded me of the equally crazy dreams we all have, where the most ridiculous things occur. It has crossed my mind that, for whatever reason, a power that I cannot comprehend is allowing me to physically experience my dreams whilst in astral form. Yes I know, that sentence is full of contradictions. How can I experience dream-state as a physical phenomenon in astral form; it doesn’t make sense, but I don’t know how else to explain it. I was definitely wide-awake and I was definitely out of my body; I know because I experienced leaving my body and returning to it. It just doesn’t explain the dream-like craziness though. Maybe I will find out in another instalment? Who knows?

I thought I would share with you the details of a workshop I ran on November 10. It had been around four years since I ran a workshop and I wanted to keep my hand in; so to speak. It was the culmination of a few ideas that I had, that I decided to put together in workshop-form. It was only a short workshop but it proved to be very successful. Below is the flyer and a couple of pics. Hope you find it of interest.

An experimental workshop with Richard Holmes; the purpose of which is to heal a traumatic experience from the past that is causing pain and suffering in the here and now. Participants are advised not to come with any preconceived ideas about what they believe psychic art and healing to be; as we will not be drawing pictures of spirit guides or engaging in hands-on healing.

The trauma will be brought to the surface via inner exploration, and this part of the workshop works on the principle that your soul, being your only true teacher, knows exactly what your physical self is able to deal with at any given moment. We will then move on to the art aspect of the workshop, which involves you expressing how you feel spiritually through your chosen artistic medium; thus releasing the trauma.
Inevitably, when something is removed a void is left. The healing aspect of the workshop involves completing the cycle by filling the void with Divine Love.
This will not be a whole day workshop, but will nonetheless go on for as long as it takes to complete the process.

You will need to bring your own art materials and preferably something to rest your paper or canvas on. Ideal media are oil or chalk pastels, pencils, charcoal and acrylic-type paints. Oil paints, whilst beautiful, are not advised for this exercise as they can take a couple of weeks to dry properly.

Richard Holmes is an author who writes in the spiritual (non-religious)/self-help genre.

*Please be advised that this workshop may not be suitable for anyone who is experiencing mental health issues, such as depression, at present. You should expect at some point to feel a range of emotions that might include anxiety, fear, and anger; you may also experience a sense of bereavement. With this in mind, you should give careful consideration as to whether your participation would be appropriate, especially if you are currently seeing a counsellor or clinical psychologist. You are also advised not to attend the workshop under the influence of alcohol, drugs or any other mind-altering substance, as this could be dangerous.

It has occurred to me that we humans are a very strange species indeed; as if we didn’t already know that. We are very quick to judge and be suspicious of people who have lived a bit, and maybe committed what society deems to be “crimes”. But, it has been said many times before; the world is paradoxical and we also have a thing called relativity. We only know things that we judge to be “good”, because we have also judged other things as being “bad”. This is the nature of relativity and judgement.

Hypothetically, if you lived on a council estate in South London and you had a couple of kids in their early teens, who would you want guiding them at the local youth club? Would you want someone who can describe what a cream tea tastes like and who may be able to describe what the inside of a church looks like? Or, would you want someone who has been down the rocky road of life, experienced dark times; maybe even gotten on the wrong side of the law, but who has come out the other side? Someone who can apply their life experience to the lives of others and help them in the process. Someone who recognises that look on the face of a youngster that says, “help me”.

The thing with life is that it is meant to be the way it is; our world couldn’t function any other way. The Divine play of life is a complete process; we cannot filter out the things we judge to be bad or wrong. All is experience and all experience has relevance regardless of the way things may seem to be on the surface.

In the above-mentioned hypothetical situation, I know who I would want guiding my kids; but then again, that’s just my judgement.

My Categories

Blogroll

Blog Stats

49,378 hits

If you have enjoyed what you have seen here then I would love to have you as a subscriber. Scroll up this column to request your subscription and receive a notification every time I post a new article.